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She stopped, her back to him, trying not to show how nervous she felt. He was behind her, much too close, and she could smell the fresh, clean scent of his body and the spicy cologne he wore.
“What’s wrong, honey?” he asked.
His tone broke her heart. He used it with little things—a newborn kitten, or a filly he was working for the first time. He used it with children. He’d used it with Abby the day her mother had died in the wreck. It had been Calhoun who’d found her and broken the news to her and then held her while she cried. It was the tone he used when something was hurt.
She straightened, trying hard to keep her back straight and her legs under control. “That man…” she began, unable to tell him he was breaking her heart because he couldn’t love her.
“Damn that drunken—” He turned her, his strong hands gentle on her upper arms, his dark eyes blazing down into hers. He was so big, and none of it was fat. He was all muscle, lean and powerful, all man. “You’re all right,” he said softly. “Nothing happened.”
“Of course not,” she whispered miserably. “You rescued me. You always rescue me.” Her eyes closed, and a tear started down her cheek. “But hasn’t it occurred to you that I’m always going to land in trouble if you don’t let me solve my own problems?” She looked up at him through a mist. “You have to let go of me,” she whispered huskily, and her eyes reflected her heartbreak. “You have to, Calhoun.”
There was a lot of truth in what she said, and he didn’t really know how to respond. He worried about her. This strange restlessness of hers, this urge to run from him, wasn’t like Abby. She was melancholy, when for the past five years or more she’d been a vibrant, happy little imp, always laughing and playing with him, teasing him, making him laugh. She couldn’t know how somber the house had been when she’d first come to live with him and Justin. Justin never laughed anyway, and Calhoun had come to be like him. But Abby had brought the sunshine. She’d colored the world. He scowled down at her, wondering how she did it. She wasn’t pretty. She was plain, and she was serious a good bit of the time. But when she laughed…When she laughed, she was beautiful.
His hands contracted. “I wouldn’t mind if you’d go to conventional places,” he muttered. “First I catch you in line to watch a bunch of nude men parade around a stage, and the very next night you’re drinking gin and tonic in a bar. Why?” he asked, his deep voice soft with curiosity and concern.
She shifted. “I’m just curious about those things,” she said finally.
He searched her eyes quietly. “That isn’t it,” he replied, his own gaze narrowing. His hands shifted, gentle on her arms, Abby could feel their warmth through the fabric. “Something’s eating you alive. Can’t you tell me what it is?”
She drew in her breath. She’d almost forgotten how perceptive he was. He seemed to see right through to the bone and blood sometimes. She let her gaze drop to his chest, and she watched its lazy rise and fall under his gray vest. He was hairy under his shirt. She’d seen him once in a while on his way to or from the shower, and it had been all she could do not to reach out and run her hands over him. He had thick brown hair across his tanned chest, and it had golden tips where it curled. There was a little wave in his thick blond hair, not much, but enough that it was unruly around his ears. She let her gaze go up, feeding on him, lingering just above his dimpled chin at the thin but sensuous curve of his upper lip and the faintly square, chiseled fullness of his lower lip. He had a sexy mouth. His nose was sexy, too. Very straight and imposing. He had high cheekbones, and thick eyebrows on a jutting brow that shadowed his deep-set eyes. He had black eyes. Both the Ballengers did. But Calhoun was something to look at, and poor old Justin was as rangy-looking as a longhorn bull by comparison.
“Abby, are you listening to me?” Calhoun murmured, shaking her gently because her faintly intoxicated stare was setting his blood on fire.
Her eyes levered up to his, finding darkness in them, secrets, shadows. Her lips parted on a hopeless sigh. When Misty had told her last week about seeing him with some ravishing blonde up in Houston, it had knocked her for a loop, bringing home the true hopelessness of her situation. Calhoun liked sophisticated women. He’d never look twice at drab little Abby. Once Abby had faced that unpalatable fact, she’d been on a one-way road to misery. She’d been looking for an escape, last night and tonight, but she couldn’t find one. Wherever she turned, Calhoun was there, hounding her, not realizing how badly he was hurting her.
“What did you say?” she asked miserably.
His chest rose and fell roughly. “It’s hopeless trying to talk to you in this condition. Go to bed.”
“That’s just where I was headed,” she said.
She turned and started up the staircase ahead of him, her eyes burning with tears that she was too proud to let him see. Oh, Calhoun, she moaned inwardly, you’re killing me!
She went into her room and closed the door behind her. She almost locked it, but realized that would be a joke and a half. Locking a door against Calhoun was a hilarious idea. He’d as soon come looking for a lady vampire as to look at Abby with amorous intent. She started laughing as she went into the bathroom to bathe her face, and she almost couldn’t stop.
Chapter Four (#u541de333-9504-5525-9a5d-f86cb82825f9)
Abby managed to get into the silver satin night gown, but she couldn’t seem to fasten it in the front. The gown hung open over her full, firm breasts. She looked at herself in the mirror as she passed it, fascinated by the sophistication the unbuttoned state lent her. She looked oddly mature with the pink swell of her breasts blatantly revealed and her long hair tangled around her face. Then she laughed at her own fancy and stretched out on top of the pale pink coverlet on her canopied bed.
The whole room was decorated in shades of pink and white with blue accents. She loved it. The Ballengers had let her choose her own colors, and these were what she favored. Very feminine colors, even if she wasn’t a sophisticated blonde. She shifted restlessly on the cover, and the bodice of her gown came completely away from one breast. Her eyes closed. What did it matter, she thought as she drifted off to sleep. There was no one to see her.
No one except Calhoun, who eased the door open with an expression of concern in his dark eyes. He saw something that knocked the breath out of him.
Abby was barely conscious. She didn’t even open her eyes when he came into the room. It was just as well, because he knew he wouldn’t be lucid if he had to speak. He’d never thought of Abby as a woman, but the sight of her in that silky drift of silver fabric, with one exquisite breast completely bare and her slender body outlined to its best advantage, shot through him like fire.
He stood frozen in the doorway, facing for the first time the fact that Abby was an adult. No sane man who saw her lying there like that could ever think of her as a child again. And even as the thought formed he realized why he hadn’t been himself lately, why he’d deliberately antagonized her, why he’d been so overprotective. He…wanted her.
He closed the door absently behind him and moved closer to her. God, she was lovely! His face hardened as he stared down at her, helplessly feeding on the sensuous nudity she wasn’t even aware of.
He wondered if she’d ever let any of her dates see her like this, and a murderous rage stiffened his tall form. He hated the thought of that. Of another man looking at her, touching her, putting his mouth on that soft swell and searching for a tip that he could make hard with the warm pressure of his open mouth….
He shook himself. This wouldn’t do. “Abby,” he said tersely.
She stirred, but only to shift on the bed so that the whole damned bodice fell open. He actually trembled at the sweetness of her pretty pink breasts with their delicate mauve tips relaxed in sleep.
He muttered something explosive and forced himself to bend over her, to pull the fabric together and fasten it. His hands shook. Thank God she wasn’t awake to witness his vulnerability.
She moaned when his hard knuckles came into contact with her skin, and she arched slightly in her sleep.
His lips parted on a rough breath. Her skin was like silk, warm and sensuous. He gritted his teeth and caught the last button. Then he scooped her up in his arms and stood holding her propped on one knee while he tore the covers loose and stripped back the colorful pink patterned top sheet over the soft blue fitted one.
Her eyes blinked and opened lazily. She searched his hard face, smiling faintly. “I’m asleep,” she whispered, nuzzling close. Her sweet scent and the feel of her soft body in his arms overwhelmed him.
“Are you?” he asked, his voice deeper, huskier than he wanted it to be. He laid her down on the sheet, cupping the back of her head in his hand while he drew a pillow under it, his mouth just above hers.
Her hands were around his neck. He drew them down and pulled the covers up over her with a feeling of relief.
“I never had anybody tuck me in before,” she mumbled drowsily.
“Don’t expect a bedtime story,” he murmured, his deep voice lazy with forced humor. “You’re too young for the only ones I know.”
“I guess I am. Too young for everything. Much too young.” She sighed heavily, as her eyes closed. “Oh, Calhoun, I wish I was blond….”
“Now what brought that on?” he asked, but she was asleep again. He looked down at her softly flushed sleeping face, his eyes narrow and dark and thoughtful. After a minute he turned and went out, flicking off the light behind him.
Justin was coming out of the living room when Calhoun got back downstairs.
“Did you bring Abby home?” Justin asked his brother.
“Yes. She’s in bed. Dead drunk,” Calhoun added with a faintly amused smile. He’d already taken off his Stetson, along with his jacket and vest.
Justin’s dark eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with you? Your lip is cut.”
“A slight altercation in the local bar and dance hall,” Calhoun said sardonically. He went to the brandy bottle and poured himself half a snifterful. He swirled it, staring into the glass. “Want one?”
Justin shook his head and lit a cigarette instead, ignoring Calhoun’s pointed glare of disapproval.
“What were you fighting about?”
Calhoun sipped his brandy. “Abby.”
Justin turned, his dark eyebrows arching. “Abby?”
“Misty Davies took her to a bar.”
“Last night a nude revue, tonight a bar.” Justin stared at his cigarette. “Something’s eating our girl.”
“I know. I just don’t know what. I don’t like what Misty’s doing, either, but I can’t tell Abby.”
Justin cocked his head as he drew on the cigarette. “She’s trying to get back at you through Abby, I gather.”
“Got it in one.” Calhoun raised the brandy snifter mockingly before he drained it. “She came on to me hard, and I turned her down. My God, as if I’d be crazy enough to seduce Abby’s best friend.”
“Misty should have known that. Is Abby all right?”
“I guess,” Calhoun said, not adding that he’d put her to bed himself or that she was the reason he was drinking, something he rarely did. “Some red-faced jackass was manhandling her.”
Justin whirled. “And?”
“I think I knocked one of his teeth out.”
“Good for you. All the same, she needs watching.”
“I’ll say amen to that. Shall we flip a coin?” Calhoun asked with pursed lips.
“Why should I interfere when you’re doing such a good job of looking out for her interests?” Justin asked, smiling faintly. His smile faded as he searched the younger man’s troubled eyes. “You do remember that Abby turns twenty-one in three months? And I think she’s already been apartment-hunting with Misty.”
Calhoun’s face hardened. “Misty will corrupt her. I don’t want Abby passed around like an hors d’oeuvre by some of Misty’s sophisticated boyfriends.”
Justin’s eyebrows arched. That didn’t sound like Calhoun. Come to think of it, Calhoun didn’t look like Calhoun. “Abby’s our ward,” he reminded his brother. “We don’t own her. We don’t have the right to make her decisions for her, either.”
Calhoun glared at him. “What do you want me to do, let her be picked up and assaulted by any drunken cowboy who comes along? Like bloody hell I will!”
He turned on his heel and walked out of the room. Justin pursed his thin lips and smiled softly to himself.
* * *
Abby woke the next morning with a headache and a feeling of impending doom. She sat up, clutching her head. It was seven o’clock, and she had to be to work by 8:30. Even now, breakfast would be underway downstairs. Breakfast. She swallowed her nausea.
She got out of bed unsteadily and went into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. She managed that and felt much better. As she started to get out of her gown, she noticed that the buttons were fastened. Odd. She was sure she’d left the thing unbuttoned. Oh, well, she must have gotten it buttoned and climbed in under the covers sometime before dawn.
It was Saturday, but ordinarily the feedlot stayed open. The cattle still had to be looked after, and the paperwork had to be done no matter what day it was. Abby had gotten used to the long work week, and it was just routine not to have her Saturdays free. She could get off at noon sometimes if she needed to go somewhere. But that hadn’t been her habit in recent months. She was hungry for the sight of Calhoun, and he was there most weekends.
She got into a pale gray suit with a blue silk print blouse and put her hair into a French twist. She used a little makeup—not much—and slid her nylon-encased feet into tiny stacked high heels. Well, she was no ravishing beauty, that was for sure, but she wouldn’t disgrace herself. She was going down with all flags flying. Calhoun would be mad as fury, and she couldn’t let him see how pale she was.
The Ballenger brothers were both at the table when she got downstairs. Calhoun glanced at her, his gaze odd and brooding, as she sat between him and Justin.
“It’s about time,” he said curtly. “You look like hell, and it serves you right. I’ll be damned if I’ll have you passing out in bars with that Davies woman!”
“Please, Calhoun, not before I eat,” Abby murmured. “My head hurts.”
“No wonder,” he shot back.
“Stop cussing at my breakfast table,” Justin told him firmly.
“I’ll stop when you do,” Calhoun told his brother, just as firmly.
“Oh, hell,” Justin muttered, and bit into one of Maria’s fluffy biscuits.
Ordinarily that byplay would have made Abby smile, but she felt too dragged-out to care. She sipped black coffee and nibbled at buttered toast, refusing anything more nourishing.
“You need to take some aspirins before you go to work, Abby,” Justin said gently.
She managed to smile at him. “I will. I guess gin isn’t really my drink.”
“Liquor isn’t healthy,” Calhoun said shortly.
Justin’s eyebrows lifted. “Then why were you emptying my brandy bottle last night?”
Calhoun threw down his napkin. “I’m going to work.”
“You might offer Abby a lift,” Justin suggested with a strangely calculating expression.
“I’m not going directly to the feedlot,” Calhoun said. He didn’t want to be alone with Abby, not after the way he’d seen her the night before. He could hardly look at her without remembering her lying across that bed….
“I’m not through with breakfast,” Abby replied, hurt that Calhoun didn’t seem to want her company. “Besides,” she told Justin with a faint smile, “I can drive. I didn’t really have all that much to drink.”
“Sure,” Calhoun replied harshly, dark eyes blazing. “That’s why you passed out on your bed.”
Abby knew she’d stopped breathing. Justin was pouring cream into his second cup of coffee, his keen eyes on the pitcher, not on the other occupants of the room. And that was a good thing, because Abby looked up at Calhoun with sudden stark knowledge of what he’d seen the night before and had her fears confirmed by the harsh stiffening of his features.
She blushed and started, almost knocking over her cup. So she had gone to sleep on the covers. Calhoun found her with her bodice undone, he’d seen her—
“Never mind breakfast. Let’s go,” Calhoun said suddenly, his lean hand on the back of her chair. “I’ll take you to the feedlot before I do what I have to. You’re not fit to drive.”
Justin was watching now, his gaze narrow and frankly curious as it went from Abby’s red face to Calhoun’s taut expression.
That look was what decided Abby that Calhoun was the lesser of the two evils. She couldn’t tell Justin what had happened, but he’d have it out of her in two seconds if she didn’t make a run for it. Calhoun must have realized that, too.
He took her arm and almost pulled her out of the chair, propelling her out of the room with a curt goodbye to his brother.
“Will you slow down?” she moaned as he took the steps two at a time. “My legs aren’t long enough to keep up with you, and my head is splitting.”
“You need a good headache,” he muttered without a glance in her direction. “Maybe it will take some of the adventure out of your soul.”
She glared at his broad back in silence as she followed him to the Jaguar and got into the passenger seat.
He started the car and reversed it, but he didn’t go toward the feedlot. He went down the driveway, turned off onto a ranch road that wasn’t much more than a rut in the fenced pastures and cut off the engine on a small rise.
He didn’t say anything at first. He rested his lean hands on the steering wheel, studying them in silence, while Abby tried to catch her breath and summon enough nerve to talk to him.
“How dare you come into my room without knocking,” she whispered after a long minute, her voice sounding husky and choked.
“I did knock. You didn’t hear me.”
She bit her lower lip, turning her gaze to the yellowish-brown pastures around them.
“Abby, for God’s sake, don’t make such an issue out of it,” he said quietly. “Would you rather I’d left you like that? What if Justin had come to wake you, or Lopez?”
